My main research focus is on interdisciplinary approaches to prehistoric language and population contact using both fine-grained molecular anthropological data as well as detailed linguistic investigations. This approach allows me to elucidate aspects of the social contact situation as well as the potential contact-induced changes wrought in the languages under study. My linguistic work focuses on the Tungusic languages Even and Negidal as well as the Turkic language Sakha (Yakut), for which I have collected oral corpora in several field trips to different villages in Yakutia, on Kamchatka, and in the Lower Amur region of Russia.

I am able to undertake such interdisciplinary work because I hold two PhD degrees: the first from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Hamburg, Germany, which I obtained in 2001 for a thesis on the genetic history of the Sakha (Yakuts) of Siberia, and the second from the Faculty of Letters, University of Leiden, Netherlands, which I obtained in 2007 for a thesis that investigated the effects of contact in the (pre-)history of the Sakha from a linguistic and molecular anthropological perspective.

From 2007 through 2011 I had the opportunity to extend this interdisciplinary research beyond the rather narrow confines of my personal research in Siberia by leading the independent Max Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics at the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. With this group, which comprised molecular anthropologists, linguists, and a social anthropologist, I undertook research projects – often in collaboration with scientists at other institutions – on population and language contact in Africa, Siberia, and Melanesia.

Since January 2012 I have been a “Directeur de recherche” (Senior scientist) at the CNRS research unit Dynamique du Langage, where I continue my interdisciplinary research in close collaboration with the Research Group on Human Population History at the Department of Evolutionary Genetics, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig. The prehistory of southern African peoples speaking different languages is at the heart of this aspect of my work.

My primary research focus lies in the genetic and linguistic effects of prehistoric population contact, with a particular interest in establishing correlations between the type of contact situation and the resulting changes in the language(s) concerned. From 2007 to 2011 I pursued this line of research as leader of the Max-Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics. My linguistic research focuses on the Siberian languages Sakha (Yakut; Turkic) and Ėven (Tungusic), for which I have collected narrative corpora during several periods of fieldwork; in addition, I am interested in the areal typology of Siberian languages. As a molecular anthropologist I have been active mainly in Africa, working in close collaboration with linguists on projects in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Burkina Faso.

TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

July 2006 – December 2011: Leader of Max Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

December 2007: Ph.D. at the Faculty of Letters, University of Leiden (thesis on: Contact in the prehistory of the Sakha (Yakuts): Linguistic and genetic perspectives)
research done at Department of Linguistics and Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

May 2001: Ph.D. at the Faculty of Biology, University of Hamburg (thesis on: Genetic Archaeology in Siberia – Studying the Origins of the Sakha Using Molecular Genetic Markers (in German))

August 1996: Master’s degree in biological anthropology, University of Hamburg

1990-1996: Studies of biological anthropology, social anthropology (ethnology) and Russian linguistics, University of Hamburg, Germany

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Documentation of Negidal, a nearly extinct Northern Tungusic language of the Lower Amur

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

July-August 2015: Giving Them Their Genetic History: Returning the Results of Molecular Anthropological Studies to Southern Africa (Project funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the LabEx ASLAN; view report)

April 2012 – June 2014: Investigating the prehistory of southern African hunter-gatherers with Y-chromosome sequences (Project funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Leakey Foundation)

April 2009 – March 2013: Documentation of the dialectal and cultural diversity among Ėvens in Siberia (DoBeS project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation)

September 2009 – August 2012: The Central Kalahari area with a focus on ǂHoan (Ju-ǂHoan family): language contact and population genetics” within the Collaborative Research Project “The Kalahari Basin area: a ‘Sprachbund’ on the verge of extinction” (EUROCORES programme ‘EuroBABEL’)

January 2007 – December 2011: Leader of Max Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics with projects on:

Population history of Western Zambia

Population relationships and language change in Burkina Faso

Documentation of ǂHoan with a focus on contact influence

Population relationships among Khoisan of Botswana and Namibia

Contact influence in the dialects of Ėven

Contact influence in the Dolgan language

Population prehistory and population contact in Siberia

Language contact and history in southern Bougainville, Papua New Guinea

July-August 2015: Engaged Anthropology Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for "Giving Them Their Genetic History: Returning the Results of Molecular Anthropological Studies to Southern Africa"

July-August 2015: Grant from LabEx ASLAN for "Giving Them Their Genetic History: Returning the Results of Molecular Anthropological Studies to Southern Africa"

May 2012 - May 2013: General grant from the Leakey Foundation for “Investigating the prehistory of southern African hunter-gatherers with Y-chromosome sequences”.

April 2012 - June 2014: Post-PhD research grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for “Investigating the prehistory of ‘Khoisan’-speaking hunter-gatherers from southern Africa with large-scale Y-chromosome sequences”.

April 2009 – April 2013: DoBeS grant from the Volkswagen Stiftung for “Documentation of the dialectal and cultural diversity among Ėvens in Siberia” (together with Dejan Matić, Katharina Gernet, and Vasilij Robbek).

September 2009 – August 2012: DFG grant for “The Central Kalahari area with a focus on ǂHoan (Ju-ǂHoan family): language contact and population genetics” within the Collaborative Research Project “The Kalahari Basin area: a ‘Sprachbund’ on the verge of extinction” (EUROCORES programme ‘EuroBABEL’).

June 2010: Course on ‘Language Contact’, LOT summer school in Nijmegen (10 hours)

October – December 2008: Advanced level seminar ‘The languages of Siberia – a typological overview’ at the Institute of Linguistics, University of Leipzig (30 hours)

October – November 2007: Advanced level seminar ‘The structure of Sakha (Yakut)’ at the Institute of Linguistics, University of Leipzig (30 hours)

October 2006 – February 2007: Advanced level seminar ‘Linguistic and genetic perspectives on language contact’ at the Institute of Linguistics, University of Leipzig (28 hours)

March 2006: ‘Genetic and linguistic diversity - a comparison’ at the Leipzig Spring School on Linguistic Diversity (8 hours)

February 2001: Practical course “Molecular genetics” at the Institute of Human Biology, University of Hamburg (36 hours)

February 2000: Practical course “Molecular genetics” at the Institute of Human Biology, University of Hamburg (36 hours)

SUPERVISED THESES AND DISSERTATION

PhD students

Falko Berthold (ǂHoan morpho-syntax and selected aspects of the historical development of the language; co-supervision with Tom Güldemann, Humboldt Universität Berlin); from May 2009, thesis abandoned 10/2016

Mark Whitten (A novel approach for elucidating the complex maternal prehistories of Siberian ethnolinguistic groups using complete mitochondrial genomes); from August 2007, thesis defended at the University of Leipzig on 18.11.2016

Linda Gerlach (Phonetic and phonological description of the N!aqriaxe variety of ǂ’Amkoe and the impact of language contact; co-supervision with Tom Güldemann, Humboldt Universität Berlin); from April 2009, thesis defended at the Humboldt University on 25.11.2015

Natalia Aralova (Vowel harmony in two Even dialects: Production and perception; co-supervision with Sven Grawunder, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, and Silke Hamann and Paul Boersma, University of Amsterdam); from April 2009, thesis defended at the University of Amsterdam on 04.09.2015

Eugénie Stapert (Contact-induced change in Dolgan: An investigation into the role of linguistic data for the reconstruction of a people's (pre)history; official supervisor Maarten Mous, University of Leiden); from February 2008, thesis defended at the University of Leiden on 26.09.2013

Chiara Barbieri (Comparing genetic and linguistic diversity in African populations with a focus on the Khoisan of southern Africa; official supervisor Donata Luiselli, University of Bologna); from September 2009, thesis defended at the University of Bologna on 29.04.2013

Cesare de Filippo (Molecular Anthropological Perspectives on the Prehistory of Sub-Saharan Africa; official head of thesis committee Svante Pääbo, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology); from January 2007; thesis defended at the University of Leipzig on 08.04.2011